Stranger in a Strange Land

«The ability to grok more of the universe than that piece near you. Mike has it from years of Martian discipline; Allie was an untrained semi-adept. That she used as meaningless a symbol as astrology is beside the point. A rosary is meaningless, too — a Muslim rosary, I'm not criticizing our competitors.» Mahmoud reached into his pocket, got out one, started fingering it. «If it helps to turn your hat around during a poker game — then it helps. It is irrelevant that the hat has no magic powers.»

Jubal looked at the Islamic device and ventured a question. «You are still one of the Faithful? I thought perhaps you had joined Mike's church all the way.»

Mahmoud put away the beads. «I have done both.»

«Huh? Stinky, they're incompatible.»

«Only on the surface. You could say that Maryam took my religion and I took hers. But, Jubal my beloved brother, I am still God's slave, submissive to His will … and nevertheless can say: “Thou art God, I am God, all that groks is God.” The Prophet never asserted that he was the last of all prophets nor did he claim to have said all there was to say. Submission to God's will is not to be a robot, incapable of choice and thus of sin. Submission can include — doesinclude — utter responsibility for the fashion in which I, and each of us, shape the universe. It is ours to turn into a heavenly garden … or to rend and destroy.» He smiled. «“With God all things are possible”, if I may borrow — except the one Impossible. God cannot escape Himself, He cannot abdicate His own total responsibility — He forever must remain submissive to His own will. Islam remains — He cannot pass the buck. It is His — mine … yours … Mike's.»

Jubal heaved a sigh. «Stinky, theology always gives me the pip. Where's Becky? I've seen her only once in twenty-odd years; that's too long.»

«You'll see her. But she can't stop now, she's dictating. Let me explain. Up to now, I've spent part of each day in rapport with Mike — just a few moments although it feels like an eight-hour day. Then I immediately dictated all that he poured into me onto tape. From those tapes other people, trained in Martian phonetics, made longhand transcriptions. Then Maryam typed them, using a special typer — and this master copy Mike or I — Mike by choice, but his time is choked — would correct by hand.

«But now Mike groks that he is going to send Maryam and me away to finish the job — or, more correctly, he has grokked that we will grok such a necessity. So Mike is getting months and years of tape completed in order that I can take it away and break it into phonetics. Besides that, we have stacks of Mike's lectures — in Martian — that need to be transcribed when the dictionary is finished.

«I am forced to assume that Maryam and I will be leaving soon, because, busy as Mike is, he's changed the method. There are eight bedrooms here equipped with tape recorders. Those who can do it — Patty, Jill, myself, Maryam, your friend Allie, some others — take turns in those rooms. Mike puts us into trance, pours language — definitions, idioms, concepts — into us for moments that feel like hours … then we dictate at once what he has poured into us, while it's fresh. But it can't be just anybody. It requires a sharp accent and the ability to join trance rapport and then spill out the results. Sam, for example, has everything but the accent — he manages, God knows how, to speak Martian with a Bronx accent. Can't use him, it would cause endless errata. That is what Allie is doing — dictating. She's in the semi-trance needed for total recall and, if you interrupt her, she'll lose what she hasn't recorded.»

«I grok,» Jubal agreed, «although the picture of Becky Vesey as a Martian adept shakes me a little. Still, she was one of the best mentalists in show business; she could give a cold reading that would scare a mark out of his shoes. Stinky, if you are going away for peace and quiet while you unwind this, why don't you come home? Plenty of room in the new wing.»

«Perhaps we shall. Waiting is.»

«Sweetheart,» Miram said earnestly, «that's a solution I would love — if Mike pushes us out of the Nest.»

«If we grok to leave the Nest, you mean.»

«Same thing.»

«You speak rightly, my dearest. But when do we eat around here? I feel a most unMartian urgency. The service was better in the Nest.»

«You can't expect Patty to work on your dratted old dictionary, see to it that everyone is comfortable, run errands for Mike, and still have food on the table the instant you get hungry, my love. Jubal, Stinky will never achieve priesthood — he's a slave to his stomach.»

«Well, so am I.»

«You girls might give Patty a hand,» her husband added.

«That's a crude hint. You know we do all she'll let us — and Tony will hardly allow anyone in his kitchen.» She stood up. «Come on Jubal, let's see what's cooking. Tony will be flattered if you visit his kitchen.»